Format Merging Auto Correction

[effleurager]

When downloading different formats and merging them, but entering -f someaudio+somevideo, the programme returns: ERROR: The first format must contain the video, try using "-f somevideo+someaudio". If it already "understands" the formats and can offer the alternate form, why can the programme not be run with the alternate form, preserving normal stream order in the merge? 😕

[jaimeMF]

It would complicate a bit the code, why can't you just use -f somevideo+someaudio?

[effleurager]

It wasn't a purposeful use of the argument, I only discovered it after I
ran the program overnight, stopping at the error. I'd just think that this
"problem" could have been avoided...

On Sat, 7 Mar 2015 at 12:17 Jaime Marquínez Ferrándiz <
notifications@github.com> wrote:

It would complicate a bit the code, why can't you just use -f
somevideo+someaudio?

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#5154 (comment).

[jaimeMF]

From the option help:

You can merge the video and audio of two formats into a single file using -f <video-format>+<audio-format>

So I think it's OK to only support that order.

[nateschiffer]

I strongly disagree with the closing of this bug. The current behavior is extremely user-hostile.

Just ran into this needless annoyance again, for about the 100th time. You see youtube-dl lists the audio-only streams first, so my natural inclination is to input those first. You can imagine how frustrating this is after I've already also done the work to fix it and submit a patch. ;)

Essentially the error message is saying "I know what you want to do. I know it will work, because I've already parsed all the formats. I know the exact thing to do to fix the problem. But I (the robot), am going to make you (the human) do some extra work just so you can accomplish what I already know you want to accomplish."

I submitted the patch above (which imo did not "complicate the code"). It also fixed some bugs (audio+audio/video+video) that weren't fixed yet, and the later fix... complicated the code.

Pardon my candor @jaimeMF, but WTF? How is this UI annoyance the least undesirable behavior? "RTFM" is no excuse.

I kindly request that this issue be re-opened. I'm more than willing to write up and edit an [acceptable] pull request to fix this to everyone's satisfaction. I just want this damn thing fixed.

[yan12125]

As #6454 is more general than #8157, we'll look at the latter as changing the code one time and solve two problems is better than changing the code two times.